Highly automated driving systems are designed to operate a vehicle on the road without driver interaction or other external control, for example, self-driving vehicles or autonomous vehicles. It is desirable that a navigation system for an autonomous vehicle be able to determine the location of the vehicle with a sufficient degree of accuracy. Calculating a precise physical position for the vehicle in respect to a representation of its surroundings can be referred to as localization. Localization can be performed for autonomous vehicles by comparing a representation of the current position of the vehicle in respect to various types of geographic features to a representation of the same geographic features recorded on a detailed virtual map.